


Accidentally Stuck

by Helpfulfairy92



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, I'm not sorry, Kidnapping I guess, Magic, but they're not that mad about it, so much, some strong language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26338909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helpfulfairy92/pseuds/Helpfulfairy92
Summary: A spell puts Caroline in a weird situation. But luckily Klaus is there, right?
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson, Matt Donovan/Rebekah Mikaelson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from FF.net, and has been edited and reworked  
> Chapter 1 Folks, lets go (again)

When she wakes up, it’s in a very different place than she had fallen asleep in. she had been in a semi nice hotel room in India, with Bonnie in the bed next to her, grimoires and papers showing family trees spread across the beds and the desk in the corner.   
The Indian air is warm, and smells of the spices the locals cook with. She loves the heat as a vampire, although Bonnie complains constantly that she feels like she is about to melt, and refuses to let Caroline sleep with the hotel windows open, says she doesn’t want to drink the air.   
They’ve been in India for a few weeks, and she’s come to enjoy the way the air almost seems to flow around her legs, the vibrancy of the hot days, and the friendly way the locals treat her and Bonnie. 

But, it’s not stifling hot in this room, and she’s no longer sleeping alone. The bed is far more comfortable than the one she had been staying in, in the hotel, and that’s saying something. That bed had felt like a cloud. 

The first thing she notices is the warm hand resting on her rib cage, the fingers spread over her bed warm skin, the thumb resting against the underside of her boob. The hand, is of course, attached to an arm, resting across her stomach, and it’s pushed the shirt she was sleeping in, following the arm, she tries to make out the face in the dim light, but she can’t see much. It must be really dark she realises, if even her enhanced vision can’t make out the man’s face. 

Instead, she squeezes her eyes shut, tries to listen further than the room, but all she can hear is her thundering heartbeat, and the breathing of the person behind her, which is concerning, usually, she can hear everything.   
All she remembers from last night is her and Bonnie ordering some room service and planning their next move, they’d been tracking a coven who had a Bennett grimoire, but it looked like they had moved on from the area at least three decades ago. They’d been planning about the next location, there were some rumours that the coven might be in Egypt, though Caroline had felt the rumours were lacking in truth, and a little too far-fetched. She thought it was more likely that they had moved onto Turkey, it had seemed more plausible, fitting their nomad patterned lifestyle a little more.  
Her brain is fuzzy beyond that conversation, and she doesn’t even remember going to bed the night before, and trying to force herself to think just hurts. 

She slowly attempts to open her eyes, trying not to move too much, lest she wake up whoever is insanely close to her shoulder. She freezes as she sees a smaller body, a very small body, with pointy knees that are digging into her left hip.   
It’s a child, like a small real life child, curled into her, and a strange man curled behind her. 

It’s enough to make any girl loose her mind a little. 

She shifts in the bed, trying to get away from either, but her movement causes the arm across her to pull her back, into a warm chest, and a sleepy murmur, and the fingers across her ribs are sleepily caressing.   
It’s the murmur that has her relaxing into the ‘strangers’ arms, even as her heart speeds up,   
“Klaus?” she whispers into the darkness, unsure if she’s pleased or terrified.   
The hand freezes its slow caress, confirming her suspicions, though, she notes he doesn’t remove his hand from where it is. 

“Caroline?” his voice is sleepy, and gravelly and she has to stop herself from swooning, because while his voice is delicious like this, he sounds as confused as she feels.   
“What are you doing here?” 

“What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here?” she counters, still whispering on account of the unidentified child in the bed they’re clearly sharing. 

“Caroline, you’re not making any sen-“ he cuts off, frowning, staring at the other side of the bed,   
“Is that a child?” He’s scrambling backward out of the bed at that, half dragging her with him, until she pulls herself free, and pushes him into the next room, closing the bedroom door behind her. 

“What the fuck did you do?” She hurls at him, confused and not entirely sure she wants to know what is going on.  
“What did I do?” His voice is still coated in sleep, and she’s half wishing he would stop speaking all together. 

In the room, it's dimly lit, though they can clearly tell it's a closet, and he paces, while she crosses her arms and watches him.  
He looks as good as she remembers, only, a little older. Different. And he’s without a shirt, so she lets her eyes wander the lines of his body.

It’s been a long time since she’s seen him in person, not since the day in the woods. So seeing him now is a bit of a shock, she’s not sure where to land her eyes, so she settles for the wall just behind him, watching the wall as he paces and tries to think through what’s going on. 

And Caroline, while many things, isn’t a liar. She’s more than kind of glad to see him.

He whirls around to face her, his face a mix of emotions she can’t quite read, and she’s glad that she has more clothes on than the last time they saw each other, a girl only has so much self-control. 

“Where are we? I thought you were in India?” He’s looking at her, frowning still. She frowns back, trying to pretend she isn’t memorising his face all over again.   
“I was,” she responds slowly, trying to decide if this is a manipulated dream, though it lacks the shimmer around the edges of her vision, and she is far too aware of her own limbs, which weirdly enough is a pretty telling factor for differentiation. Or, if they’ve been dropped into some kind of prison world, or maybe they’d died and this was some sick version of heaven, or hell. 

She hasn’t decided yet. 

“Where were you?” She asks tiredly, sliding down one of the closed cupboards to sit on the carpet, suddenly exhausted, watching as he repeats the motion across from her  
“At the house is New Orleans, Kol and Rebekah are in residence at current, so we’ve been mostly avoiding each other” he admits with an awkward half shrug. 

She tries to break the tension,   
“Who have you pissed off recently?” She asks with a small grin as he shrugs,   
“No one new in the last couple of weeks, anyway” she scoffs disbelievingly.  
“That’s not like you, you must be losing your touch”, she teases gently, gently shoving his leg with her toes. He grins at her, but says nothing.   
“Can you hear anything?” She pipes up after a moment of silence, and he shakes his head, confirming her suspicions.   
“I don’t like it,” she continues, feeling as though there was someone behind her, watching. 

“I don’t think it’s just the not hearing, notice your heart beating louder and harder than it usually does?” he asks, and she nods slowly.   
Vampires still had heart beats, weirdly enough, considering they were for all intents and purposes dead, but their heart beats were usually a little slower than humans, fainter. Enough for them to blend in with humans, but not enough to overpower their enhanced senses. She hadn’t even been aware of Klaus’s heartbeat until she had her ear resting on his chest, that day in the woods. 

She’s still not ready to say it aloud, so he does.   
“We’re human, and here, where ever that is. It’s not a manipulated dream, so my first thought is a spell. A slim possibility that it may be a prison world, but that would require a coven, and the only one I know of strong enough to do this is currently in a truce with my siblings and I, after we helped them out of a spot of trouble a few years ago.”   
He chuckles softly at her surprised look, disbelieving that the originals could be friends with an entire coven of witches.  
“It pays to have some powerful friends , love”

“Ok, so somehow, we’re both human, and here, where ever here is, and” she flashes her left hand at him   
“looks like we’ve got something in common?” He looks at her hand, there’s a wedding band there, and one on his hand as well.   
“So, we do love.” he holds his hand up, confirming. She takes a deep breath, and is lost for what to say next. Eyes focused on the ring on her left hand, she can’t tell if its white gold or platinum, but the band is simple, curved to make room for its match, and Caroline silently gulps as she thinks about that, that there is an engagement ring that goes along with this band. Pushes down her curiosity about how it looks on her hand, and the man who gave it to her.

Waking up next to him is definitely not the worst thing she’s ever done, and given different circumstances, she imagines she would even be pleased about it, before the panic had set in, she was very comfortable, pressed against him, curled around him.   
But, waking up apparently married, human, with a small child in what was obviously their bed, is an entirely different story. 

She’s been silent enough that Klaus worries, gently nudging her leg and teasing her,   
“Who have you pissed off recently?” a small smile that was meant to be calming, but wasn’t fooling anyone, and she’s shaking her head before he’s even finished talking. 

She’s twisting her fingers nervously. She’s trying not to look at him too closely. It throws her heart out of its steady rhythm, and makes her breath catch in her throat. She can’t focus on what they’re talking about when she looks too closely. He’s still shirtless, and she doesn’t want to be distracted from the real issue. 

“Bonnie got an email a couple of weeks ago, from a witch who wanted to take you down. She’s been emailing back and forth with her for a while about magic, nothing to do with you, and then out of the blue she asked Bonnie for help.  
“She got a bit shirty with Bonnie when we offered to get her out of New Orleans until you’d moved on. Told Bonnie she was betraying her true self by working with me, and not working against you. She seemed to know a lot about what had happened in Mystic Falls.”  
She says the last bit hesitantly, knowing he wasn’t going to like that. He and his siblings had managed to quash whatever stories had come out of Mystic Falls, had even come to a deal with Elena and Damon and Stefan. She wasn’t sure what was involved, but she didn’t hear from Elena anymore.   
They weren’t too keen on the general population learning of their weakness for white oak, or that there was a cure, living inside the doppelgänger and her protectors, that Kol had died and been brought back to life wasn’t something they wanted to get out, half of their reputation was that they couldn’t be killed. Klaus especially wanted to protect Caroline’s identity until she decided if she wanted him or not. Her being killed in retaliation, or as some sort of revenge plot really ruined that. 

“Someone talked then” he said grimly, and she could tell he was mentally running through a list of people to eliminate.   
“No one would have done that,” she countered quietly, knowing that there was a very, very short list of people that would have spread anything around. 

“Katherine knows better, she got what she wanted already, that and if she betrays me, she betrays Elijah, and she won’t do that again” he says, and she wonders what the story is there.   
She knew that Elijah had had a small thing for the doppelgänger way back, before she had been turned, but wasn’t sure it was real, or just Katherine being her usual manipulative self, and she wasn’t exactly close with Elijah, so wasn’t likely to ask him for his relationship drama. And given what she did know of Elijah, he wasn’t likely to volunteer the information himself. 

“I haven’t heard from Tyler for a few years” she volunteers awkwardly, twisting the hem of her shirt in her fingers, avoiding his eyes.   
Although she and Klaus have kept in touch over the years, not closely by any means, but the gaps between their phone calls were in weeks more than the months they had started at, they had never once talked about Tyler. She sometimes though Klaus was avoiding asking in case he heard something he didn’t want to. 

There’s an awkward silence in the hallway, she can tell he doesn’t want to ask about it, but at the same time he does. 

“So,” he says eventually, clearing his throat, “the short list is Tyler or the Salvatore brothers.” She grimaces, feels guilty at hoping its Tyler and not Stefan or Damon. They’d both taken the cure and were currently living very normal, very human lives. She’s already shaking her head. 

“I don’t think it was Stefan or Damon, they just want to live their lives and not ever think of the supernatural again. I know they’re not the brightest, but they won’t even take Bonnie’s calls. There is no way they’d embroil themselves in a battle with your family again” she feels bad, but if Tyler has done this to himself, there is no helping him now. Especially not if he has been talking to people about what had happened in Mystic Falls, they’d all been sworn to secrecy and compelled not to reveal Klaus’s attachment to her, not to reveal any of the things that had happened in the town, Tyler had only escaped it because he was already gone, had somehow evaded magical means of tracking. 

Before they can continue their conversation though, the bedroom door is opened by the child in the bed. 

“Auntie Care?” he sounds upset, close to tears, and Caroline tenses, watches the small child carefully.   
He’s got a tumble of blond curls, not unlike Klaus’s, although the colour is much lighter, sleepy blue eyes and little footie pyjamas with batman on them.   
If she squints he sort of looks a little bit like Matt when he was little, though his face isn’t quite right, the resemblance is enough for her to have no doubt that this is Matt’s child. 

He looks confused about why they are sitting on the ground, and wipes at his eyes tiredly.   
“I had another bad dream” Caroline lets out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding, and she can hear Klaus’s noisy exhalation of breath. A deep, bone relief they share at the boy calling her aunt.   
Thank god he wasn’t calling her Mommy, that would have been a special kind of nightmare.   
He just nods, and holds his arms up for her to pick him up, so she climbs up from the ground (much harder than it usually is in her vampire body).   
She hadn’t really thought of kids before she had been turned into a vampire, not further than the general. She thought that she would maybe one day have kids, once she had had her career and life and was married etc. Once she had turned into a vampire, and the option was taken from her, she hadn’t really minded, mostly because she hadn’t really thought about it in real terms, still hasn’t fully thought through the repercussions if she’s being honest. 

She lifts him a little awkwardly, and he immediately settles into her shoulder, sleepily rubbing his face against her shirt, sniffling quietly. Caroline melts just a little inside at how cute this is, at how warm and cuddly the small child is.

“Shall we get you back into bed then?” she asks, moving back into the room he had come out of, and he nods,   
“Is Unca Nik come too?” he reaches his hand out, and Klaus rises from the ground, and follows behind them, his hand low on Caroline’s back.   
She can feel the heat of his hand through her shirt, and she’s glad that he no longer has the hybrid senses, otherwise he would be able to hear her heart as it stutters in her chest, she vaguely wonders if he can feel the flush of heat over her body as she remembers the last time he had his hands on her. 

Caroline tucks the boy back into the middle the large bed, watching as he wiggles back into the pillow and lets her pull the blanket up to his chin.   
“Will you sleep too? He asks, pouting. Caroline exchanges another look with Klaus -Nik- and shrugs.  
“I can’t sleep without you,” he pouts, his bottom lip jutting out, giving her a feeling of déjà vu, she swears she has seen that pout before, not on Matt, but on Kol. 

“Alright,” Klaus agrees before she can, he’s looking just as intently at the child, an odd note of recognition in his eyes, Caroline wonders what he is seeing, if he has made the same connection as she has.   
Without confirming anything, she thinks this kid might be Matt and Rebekah’s. It would make sense.   
She returns to the side of the bed she woke up on, climbing under the covers, waiting for Klaus to do the same on his side.   
“That’s what mommy and daddy do” he informs them in his little sleepy voice. She figures it might be weird if they asked exactly who mommy and daddy were. Assuming they really were his Aunt and Uncle, they should probably know something like that. And he might be young enough that he might only know his parents as mommy and daddy, not actual people. 

Caroline pulls the fluffy white blanket further up, and tucks it under his chin. Thankfully, she feels as awkward as Klaus looks.   
“You have to stay here until morning time now” he bossily told her, and turning his face to Klaus as well. She snorted a small laugh, making Klaus smile in response.   
Now there was really no doubt in her mind as to who his parents were. 

“Alright, we’re not going anywhere. Go to sleep” she shoots a bemused look at Klaus over the small boy. 

……..

After making sure he was asleep, Caroline looked over at Klaus, and silently mouthed to the closet. He nodded and gently eased his way out of the bed, her following his lead and easing her limbs out from under the child’s. 

“We need to figure out what’s going on. Want to explore first?”


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited ch 2  
> To all those who have waited and watched and hoped, here it is. I am so sorry this has taken so long! I love you all  
> And a special thanks to misssophiachase and sekretny13 for their lovely kind words and encouragement, this is for you! xxx

Klaus watches Caroline carefully, still unsure if she’s real, or if she is just a figment of his imagination, or a product of a spell and his own wishful thinking. He hates that she makes him feel like this, all churned up and nervous. Other people might call it jittery, or say that he had butterflies in his stomach.   
He has killed people for saying much, much less. 

They’re standing in a closet, their closet he realises, and he quietly likes the idea, but he stays quiet, unsure how Caroline would take it. 

While he is taking in the closet, she had already moved out into the hallway, peeking into the door to the left of what is clearly their bedroom, and he follows her, noting the plain looking room, a scenic photograph and a batman themed suitcase, a small pair of tennis shoes clearly kicked across the room. The bed is rumbled, likely where their ‘nephew’ had been sleeping, the bedside lamp still on.   
The room next to it is also clearly a guest room, tasteful but no real personal affects. There is another scenic photo in this room, a wide sweeping shot off a mountain. 

It what is hanging in the stair well opposite their room that stops the both of them in their tracks. 

Caroline looks like she’s stopped breathing, staring at the large photograph of them. They’re almost kissing in the picture, faces so, so close together, they’re dancing, with wide smiles stretching across both of their faces. Caroline looks breath-taking, in her wedding dress, and he can’t help but feel slightly wistful at the sight, a moment that they have clearly lived, but that neither of them know. He never thought he would say it, but he feels slightly jealous of himself.   
It looks like a candid from the end of the night, her shoes have clearly been abandoned, and strands of her hair has come loose from its up-do. He’s lost his suit jacket, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up his forearms and bowtie hanging loose around his neck. It’s clear that the people in the photo are talking softly to each other, and he wonders what had put such smiles on their faces. 

He opens his mouth to speak, closes it and then opens it again. But he can’t quite find the words, he’s not even sure what he wants to say.   
Caroline is just gaping at the picture, her eyes roving over the photo, but nothing comes out of her mouth. Much like him, she is at a loss for words.   
The stairs go up, and down, Caroline begins down, staring at the walls with her wide eyes, roving over each and every picture. It’s like a mosaic, extending up into the dark stair well above them, and he takes in each happy snapshot of their life. 

There’s a large one of Klaus’s family, they’re at some event. They’re all dressed up, Rebekah in a dress, the boys in dress shirts and ties with champagne glasses in hand. Finn, Elijah, Klaus, Kol, Rebekah and Henrik (older and more alive than the last time Klaus had seen him) along with Ester and Mikael, all with demure smiles directed at the camera.   
Under it is picture of Caroline with the doppelgänger and the Bennett witch. They’re laughing, standing outside of what looks to be the doppelgänger’s house in Mystic Falls. There’s another of her with Rebekah, they’re holding wine glasses up, grins large under sun hats and sunglasses. It looks like they’re on a beach. There’s one of him with just his brothers, and a bigger one of them both with her parents on the other wall.   
It’s the next one that answers a question, Rebekah and Matt are smiling, with the small boy from the other room between them, his face covered in chocolate cake, pointy birthday hats with a number 2 on all their heads. The boy looks a lot smaller than he currently is, so he thinks it must be an older one, he points it out to Caroline, and she nods silently, the surprise still written on her face.   
There are more, a very formal one of Elijah and Katherine with 2 impeccably dressed dark haired girls in front of them, Finn with Sage and 3 boys, sitting at a picnic table, with wide grins. Klaus and Caroline with Matt and Rebekah, them with Elijah and Katherine’s girls, Klaus scowling at a laughing, water pistol wielding Kol.   
There is one of Henrik and Klaus, sitting on a couch, both sick and wrapped in blankets, matching grumpy looks on their faces.   
Kol and Rebekah with her son, teaching him to rig a slingshot, a disapproving Matt looking on from the background.

There are so many pictures of him and Caroline and his family and hers, and her friends, and people he assumes are his friends. There are small photos, and larger ones, though none are as large as the one of their wedding.   
There are birthday parties and dinners and holidays.   
“Look at this one,” Caroline calls to him, pointing at a smaller one. It’s another of them, this time standing in front of a house with a sold sign next to them, wide grins on both of their faces again. He very rarely has that expression on his face, but here, its plastered all over the walls.   
He has no idea what’s happened to get them here, but he wants to remember this life, his life with her. In of these photos, they look so happy, and he wants to know what that’s like.   
“Wow”, Caroline breaths, and he nods, unable to find the words.   
“Wow,” he agrees.  
There is an awkward silence, both of them trying to figure a way to diffuse the tension, but neither managing to find the words.   
Eventually, she manages a strangled sentence  
“This is crazy. I’m actually friends with Rebekah” she laughs, and he can’t help but laugh too, “Now that is something I have to see.”

“We should carry on” her voice is a bit sad, and he nods again, wanting to pull her into his arms, offer comfort, instead though, puts his arms behind his back, one of his usual tells when he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and tries to quash the feeling.   
“Shall we go and see what else is down there?” She’s already moving to the stairs. Its dark, but she finds a light switch at the bottom, illuminating the entrance of the house.   
The stair case continues down to their left, though Caroline ignores it for now, turning right and opening the glass doors into a formal living room. There is some art on the wall, an abstract piece that is more brush strokes than actual scene, but it fits well with the room, and in the corner, the initials NM mark it as one of his.   
He frowns slightly, so human him here is also a painter. Caroline quickly loses interest in this room, it’s clear that human them didn’t really use this room, and they head back to the entrance.   
She closes the doors behind them, and they head to the left, to a kitchen. It’s nice, modern. It looks lived in, homely, despite the modern fixtures. 

There’s some high chairs at the island, some mail piled next to a fruit bowl. Caroline looks pleased, and she moves around, opening cupboards, giving a pleased little hum when she finds what she expects. When she discovers the wine fridge, and she’s even more pleased, pulling out a bottle of red, inspecting it closely, before wordlessly tipping it in his direction.   
He’s been standing there like a twit with his mouth gaping while he watched her, mostly because he’s still so confused, and he has so many questions, though he knows that Caroline doesn’t have any answers. He feels panicky, even more so than he did upstairs. It isn’t just panic at seeing Caroline, it’s panic at being human, at being weak and defenceless in an unfamiliar place.  
The only thing that isn’t really panicking him is Caroline. He can feel his heart racing, and his breath coming faster, but he doesn’t know how to stop it, there are spots dancing before his eyes, and he closes them to try and stop it. 

“Hey, it’s ok, just take a breath. Here, sit down” Caroline’s cool hands are on his shoulders, leading him to one of the stools at the island, and he opens his eyes to watch her face. She’s concerned, and she smiles at him weakly, holding his hand and calmly breathing to try and get him to calm down.   
“It’s ok, just breathe. You’re hyperventilating, in’ she draws a long breath in, holding it for a moment, releasing it slowly “and out”. She breaths with him for a few minutes, until his heart is no longer pounding, before setting a glass of water down in front of him, putting the wine back, getting a second glass for herself. 

……….

It’s at least twenty silent minutes later, when they’re sitting side by side at the island. She had managed to find a bottle of bourbon, and they’d been working through it, she’s enjoying the burn and the slight buzz she’s working on. It’s making whatever is going on hurt less, though she would love to find out what exactly had happened to bring them here.   
“So” He trails off immediately, his mouth working,  
“I’m sorry about that” She’s waving off his apology before he’s even finished.   
“Don’t worry about it, we’ve got to stick together right?”. He gives her a grateful look, and just as he’s opening his mouth, there’s a chime from a cell phone, sitting just by the pile of mail. 

“Might have something useful?” She taps at the screen, hides a smile when she notices the wallpaper screen is another photo of her and Klaus, but quickly frowns as she realises its protected by a passcode.  
“Alright, we can do this. Four numbers, easy peasy” she tries her birthday first, and fails, then her passcode on her phone at home, and still nothing.   
“Try my birthday?” he asks, and she raises an eyebrow,   
“I don’t think-“ he reaches for the phone, disbelief in her eyes but hands the phone over. He taps his birthday onto the screen, 0612 onto the screen.  
“I knew I would never be that obvious” she says smugly when the passcode fails.   
She tries her Moms birthday next. Still not right, trying her dads, even Elena and Bonnies birthdays, her frustration growing as they all failed.   
“What’s Rebekah’s birthday?” She asks, on the off chance that they’re really good friends here.   
“April second” he replies absently, he’s walking around the room, looking at yet more photo’s that seem to be everywhere in this house. She taps the phone against her other hand, thinking about an appropriate combination of numbers for the passcode. 

“Do you think we have enough photos?” She comments idly, watching as he runs his fingers over a few of the ones sitting on a shelf. She can’t believe how many they have in one house. The other them must not go a day without taking a picture. 

He snorts in amusement, agreeing with her, but not looking up from the picture he had picked up.   
“Try 1409” he offers with no explanation. She looks at him quizzically, before trying it.   
“It worked” she sounds surprised, he brings the photo frame back with him  
“What was it?” She asked curiously, as he sits back next to her, looking at the screen of the phone in her hand.   
“The day we got married here” he’s got that smile on his face, the one that makes her insides twist uncomfortably, but she kind of likes the way it licks fire through her, settling in her cheeks.   
He shows her the picture, it’s another of them on their supposed wedding day. They’re leaving a church, laughing as he pulls her down the path between guests, as rice rains down. In the corner, there’s a small date, 14.09.

“Right,” she clears her throat, blushing again, turning her attention back to the phone in her hand.   
“Shall we see what we’ve got then,” she opened her messages, at the top of the list was ‘Nik’, followed by Kol (which she isn’t sure about, but ok), Rebekah, Bonnie, Elena, her mom. There’s one from Katherine, and a few from names she doesn’t recognise. 

“Nik?” she asks, in surprise. She thinks she might have heard Rebekah call him that, but didn’t imagine she would ever.   
“That’s what my family called me, when I was human” he frowns, a strange expression working its way across his face. 

“Are you ok?” She asks, and immediately regrets it. Obviously neither of them are ok, and asking just highlights that they’re not.   
“Fine, love” he responds, with a tight grimace, an expression she’s never seen from him. 

“This is really scaring me” she admits quietly, putting down her phone without looking at any of the messages. Instead, she picks up her glass of bourbon, downing it in one go, wincing slightly at the burn.   
His arm comes around her shoulder, as comforting as he can be in this moment, when he has no more idea than she does.   
“To be honest, it’s scaring me too.” He looks at her phone again, noting the time.   
“Look, its after 3, we’re not going to achieve anything right now. Why don’t we get some sleep, and we can make a plan in the morning?” He gently chaffs her arm, his tone cajoling.  
“Yeah. You’re probably right” she stands, leading the way up the stairs. 

“You know,” she says as they’re making their way up the stairs, turning off the lights as they go.  
“As much as I know we both hate whatever this is, it is good to see you” she tells him and hears him quietly laugh behind her.  
“It is?” his voice is quietly hopeful. While they have talked over the last few years, it isn’t the same as actually seeing each other.   
“It’s nice to talk to you without telling you off about the hybrid” she gives him a mock stern look, but he merely smiles at her, one of his genuine ones.   
“But then you might never talk to me” he says, but Caroline privately thinks she probably would have made an excuse to talk to him eventually.   
When they reach the master bedroom, they both pause, looking in at the small boy, Rebekah and Matt’s child. 

“Should we...?” He sounds like he’s trying to make it less awkward, only making it more awkward. She lets out a small sound of amusement.   
“We can just take the guest room?” she offers instead, turning and, without checking that he’s following, moves through to the other room, climbing into the bed before he comes into the room. She’s settled into the bed, the blanket pulled back on the other side, as he warily walks into the room.  
“Don’t be a baby,” she tells him rolling her eyes, patting the bed next to her. “We can be grown-ups, and besides, we’re married, here right?” Her logic is thin, but makes him smile, which was the goal.   
And besides, she thinks to herself, they have slept together. Of course, that was in the woods, and there wasn’t any actual sleeping, but they’ve seen each other naked. Sharing a bed for just sleep is hardly the worst thing they’ve done together.   
And if his hopes are anything to go by, it’s something they’d be sharing anyway in the future.   
He gets into the bed, and she turns off the lamp that had been left on, she assumes for a nightlight for their nephew, mindful of where Klaus’s body is in relation to her own.   
It’s quiet for a few moments, and then she reaches across the space to find his hand, holding it tightly in hers.   
“Good night Caroline” he murmurs into the warm darkness.   
“Goodnight Klaus” 

…….

“Auntie Care?” the voice she’s hearing doesn’t make sense to her half-asleep mind. She can feel a small pat on her face, and the bed next to her dips slightly.   
“Auntie Care?” The tap to her face is sharper this time and she opens an eye, her dream fading away fast as she wakes up. 

There is the same boy from last night leaning scarily close to her face. She tries to smile, so that she doesn’t frighten him.   
“Hey” her voice breaks with sleep, and she tries to pull herself up. But she can’t, because Klaus has pulled her close in the night. His arms are trapping her, her back against his chest, their legs tangled together, his forehead resting on her shoulder.  
“Auntie Care, can I get in with you?” The boy asks, pulling at the corner of the blanket, talking a mile a minute.  
“It’s morning time, but I woke up and I was all alone, and I looked for you, and you were in my bed and I was in yours!” He giggles as if this is the most absurd thing he’s ever heard.  
“Come on, climb in” she pulls the covers back, and lets him climb in, he immediately gets as close to her as he can, squishing himself right up against her.   
She is completely sandwiched between the two of them.   
“Are you going to go back to sleep?” She asks, and he shrugs, giggling when she tickles his side.   
“Can I wake Unca Nik up?” He asks instead, looking behind her at a still sleeping Klaus, Nik she reminds herself. She had decided before going to sleep that she would have to call him Nik if they were here, it’s clearly what she called him, and if they were stuck here, she would have to blend in. Better to start in her own head before she has to talk to other people and flub it. 

She looks over to him, and he’s frowning a tiny bit, and there’s a twitch at the side of his mouth, and she knows he’s awake.   
“Sure,” she says trying to wiggle away, but his arms tighten, holding her still.   
She can’t say she minds all that much, she wasn’t kidding last night when she had said it was good to see him.   
Whatever weird dance they’ve been doing over the last few years has been leading up to one place, each other. She had been tentatively planning a new trip once her and Bonnie were done, a solo one. One she wasn’t sure if she was going to come back from. One she had only thought about, she hadn’t actually said anything to anyone yet.   
Though, the last time Kol had called, he had been annoyingly smug about waiting for her to figure something out. Maybe he had known she was planning on planning a trip.   
He would be a smug little prick about it. 

He awkwardly clambers up to his knees, peering over her shoulder at Klaus’ face, and pokes at his cheek, leaning in close to his face and loudly whispers,   
“Unca Nik?”  
He lets out a theatrical groan, grumbling at the intrusion, though Caroline is sure he’s been awake since the boy came into the room. 

“Uncle Nik, you’re awake!” He cries, and she feels Klaus, Nik, chuckle against her shoulder.   
“Who can sleep through this racket you two are making?” He says, and his voice is gravelly, and sends a lick of fire through her stomach, same as last night when she heard his scratchy sleep voice.   
“What time is it?” she asks to distract herself from the feeling, and his arms around her, and his bare chest behind her, and his legs tangled with hers. He has never been this casually close to her, and it is a little intense for her, when her brain is only half awake. 

“Early” he says sternly, teasing, “so why are you two awake?” She rolls her eyes, and manages to wiggle herself free from his arms, he’s not as strong as he once was. She leans over the boy to grab her phone that she left on the night stand, tickling him again. It’s not long before seven in the morning, they’ve only been sleeping for a few hours, though she feels like she could sleep for ten more.   
“Breakfast?” She asks the two boys, showing Klaus, Nik, the time.   
“Let’s go!” the boy cries, jumping from the bed enthusiastically, grabbing Klaus’s hand, and she follows the two down stairs. The house, their house, looks a little different in the morning light, she can now see that there is a skylight at the top of the stairs, lighting the stairway, and the kitchen and living room looks as lovely in the daylight as it did last night. Everything is exactly as she would have styled it; the whole house is something she loves already. 

“Pancakes!” the boy yells, climbing onto one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter.   
“Pancakes it is,” Caroline agrees. “Why doesn’t Uncle Nik go back upstairs, and put a shirt on and you and me will make some pancakes, and then we can decide what to do today?” She’s looking at the boy, she really needs to figure out what his name is and soon, but directing her comment to Klaus, Nik, and he smiles at her innocently, his voice is anything but.   
“Alright, Love, if that’s what you want.” She nods, but follows him with her eyes as he walks back up the stairs, even in this human form, he looks good.  
“Bring my phone?” She calls up as he goes, and he calls an agreement from somewhere on the stairs. 

“Pancakes?” She asks again, after finding herself staring at the empty staircase for a moment too long, and starts hunting through cabinets to find coffee and pancake ingredients. She manages to remember where everything was from her brief exploration from earlier, and has started some coffee when a phone rings.   
She stares at it for a moment, before remembering that it’s her phone, and she should maybe answer it.   
The caller ID says its Rebekah’s cell phone.   
“Hello?” Jesus, she was going to have to work on not sounding so afraid of her own phone,   
“Caroline?” She sounds confused, Caroline is immediately relieved.   
“Care! How is everything going?” she sounds far too chipper to be this awake this early Caroline thinks  
“Good morning to you too, so good to talk to you Caroline” she teases, and Rebekah just scoffs at her.  
“Rebekah, its barely seven am, this call couldn’t wait?” She laughs, and hears Rebekah laughing too.   
“Sorry, we’re at the airport I kind of forgot” Caroline hums, watching the child trying to open the container with the flour in it on his own.   
“But Liam was fine, right?” Caroline is immediately relived. She finally has a name.   
“Yes, of course he was” at least she thinks so, all she can remember is of him sleeping, and waking them up but she doesn’t tell Rebekah that, it might not go over too well.   
“Can I talk to him?” Rebekah sounds a little anxious, a state Caroline rarely associates with Rebekah, so she doesn’t tease.   
“Yeah, hold on, Liam,” she calls waving the phone to him.  
“You’ve got a phone call,” he takes the phone from her, and immediately starts chatting away to his mother. 

Apparently last night they fed him chicken nuggets and Nik had the audacity to try and feed him peas, he shoots Caroline a look she recognises as Rebekah’s as he relays this, which is equal parts hilarious and terrifying. 

She continues to make coffee when Nik comes back into the kitchen, and Liam hands off the phone to him, and helps Caroline to mix the batter for their pancakes.   
“Mommy said they will be here tonight!” He tells her excitedly, splattering milk onto the counter and his batman pyjamas in the process.   
“So, are you having dinner again here tonight?” She asks, and he looks at her like she’s asking a ridiculous question.   
“Yes, and mommy and daddy are staying here tonight and then we are going back to my house tomorrow” he tells her. And she nods, suddenly remembering a conversation from a few weeks ago. 

“So, you’re sure its ok if you have Liam for that long?” Rebekah checks, sounding nervous.  
“I know you haven’t had him for that long, I know its three nights, and it doesn’t sound like a long time, but he can be pretty full on, and you’ve never had him for that long. You really don’t have to. We can take him to Elijah”   
“Beks, don’t be ridiculous, of course we can. It’s only a few nights, and he’s four, I think somehow, we can figure it out. And besides, we have a live-in child already.” She points out, and hears Rebekah acknowledge her point with a quiet hum  
“If you’re sure, Liam likes you two the best, and I don’t want to have to spend more time with Katherine if he decides he likes them better” Caroline snorts ungraciously,  
“Nobody wants that Bekah,”   
“You’re right. He would come home in a suit and he would lose his adorable little lisp that he has at the moment”   
“Ok, so we leave Paris, and then we’re spending the night with you guys in London, on Sunday night, and then flying back to New York Monday. You’re still fine to pick us up at Heathrow, right?” She runs through her list.   
“I swear if you ask me again, I am going to tell your brother to leave you at the airport, and you can pay the astronomical cab fare” she threatens.   
“Ok, ok, fine. We will see you in a week ok?”   
“Sounds good Beks,” she replies and hangs up.

Nik wanders back to the kitchen counter, still talking to his sister, oblivious to Caroline’s panicky expression, the memory feeling like it had been planted in her brain, it definitely hadn’t been there before, and she feels an ache behind her eyes as she struggles to process. 

“Yes Rebekah, we will pick you up from the airport” He sounds exasperated, as if she’s asked a couple of times  
“We’ll be there, stop panicking” he hangs up before she can say anything else.   
“Good news, she is the same as she was at home” he tells her, a note of amusement in his voice, concern making its way across his face as he takes in her expression. 

“Coffee?” She asks to deflect, not ready to talk about whatever had just happened and he wrinkles his nose.   
“Tea?” He offers instead, moving around the kitchen trying to find where everything is.   
“Pancakes?” Liam asks, reminding them that he’s still there and that he still wants them.   
“Of course,” she pats his head awkwardly. 

………


End file.
